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Saturday Shorts: Pictures

Here we are, at the end of another year. We’ve covered quite a few short films, ranging in everything from wry comedies about relationships to feel-good animated shorts. It’s been quite a diverse year. My favorite, though, are the horror shorts. There’s something positively exquisite about being scared for five-minute bursts. It takes something masterful in order to make me feel fear in such a short time. In that spirit, we’re going to close out the year with S.L. Allred’s 2015 short, Pictures.

I love the premise of this film: the ability to see a few minutes into the future while you’re all alone. This one doesn’t try to explain a rudimentary time travel concept; it gives us that pieces and then moves on, which is sometimes kind of nice, as time travel can break your brain. It also preys upon a common fear: deep down, many of us have a fear that something is going to sneak up behind us when we’re by ourselves (either that, or it’s just me and I’m projecting my own neurosis onto you, dear reader). Allred does a great job here in terms of establishing tone by cutting down on dialogue and employing simple edits to establish that sense of growing dread. Between the editing and the near-ashen lighting, it’s a perfectly overcast , dread-inducing piece.